New STM32F3 devices (Cortex-M4)

[Giovanni]

Hi,

I just saw this on the ST web site, more STM32s incoming, this new STM32F3xx is meant as an STM32F1xx pin-compatible replacement, the datasheet is not yet available but I saw an interesting 16bits ADC on some models and the same touch inputs already present on the F0. Probably it will also include all the improvements to peripherals already seen on the F0 but this is just an assumption.

Support in ChibiOS should not be a problem and will not take long thanks to the recent changes to the general STM32 support.

Giovanni

[Badger]

I was wondering if there was going to be something between the F2 and F4!

It's interesting that F1 and F3 are compatible, hopefully they will support more peripheral remapping like the F2/F4 does.

[Badger]

Here's the article

STM32 F3 series devices also incorporate ST’s latest improvements to digital peripherals for its STM32 family, which Michel Buffa explains is a further advantage of the extensive compatibility between all ST’s ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers.

Looks like we might get improved peripherals. And it has comparators, I look forward to this chip.

[Badger]

The datasheets do seem to be available on the st website if you search for stm32f3 partcode. e.g STM32F302xx.

[Giovanni]

I missed that apparently it is done as expected.

With ADC, amplifiers and comparator, this thing begs for a ChibiOS-based digital oscilloscope project .

Giovanni

[Tectu]

With ADC, amplifiers and comparator, this thing begs for a ChibiOS-based digital oscilloscope project .

This begs for some GLCD Library abstraction layer

Would love to do that.


~ Tectu

[Badger]

Unfortunately they appear to lack FSMC, so no lovely DMA data transferring

[Giovanni]

A digital oscilloscope would not require much graphic performance anyway. Probably an oscilloscope could really be a nice community project (I don't have one at home), it could do dual output USB with PC or stand-alone with a cheap LCD.

While at it let's also add a functions generator with the DACs, SPI monitor, logic analyzer etc.

Giovanni

[Tectu]

Well, you just need to draw the grid and then do lcdDrawPixel()


~ Tectu

[Abhishek]

Even I have been thinking of having an oscilloscope based on an STM32. Indeed there are designs of oscilloscopes (usually chinese, search eBay for DSONano and you'll find plenty). They're pretty advanced and come in under 150$. There's also a DSONano project hosted on google code. I hope this info may be useful for a starting point.

However just doing plotting won't serve the purpose. We need to have plenty of memory to store the samples, just in case the user decides to view his traces. No idea if an SD/MMC card on SPI could handle it fast enough (On my F4 disco SPI1 @ 21Mhz, I can clock in i.e. read at around 1.5 MB/sec, block-aligned with a 16K buffer, writing would be somewhat slower). Say at around 2Msps, you would need 4MB memory to store data per channel. And I didn't see SDIO when I checked ST website for some F3 info.

Although I think for such great an offering to be running only at 72Mhz is a disadvantage, could it be because of a lot of analog circuitry onboard?

I'm thinking about this project, how about integrating LCR auto-ranging & metering capability also apart from function generator logic analyser and other stuff. That would make it an indispensable tool for any hobbyist / engineer.

Anyway we need to add more drawing functions, especially rotated text and partial ellipses to the GLCD library so that we could draw an analog meter on the display! It would look really nice.